The purpose here was to take a quote-unquote negative experience and spin it into something hopefully helpful for other devs, and myself (hello, hn front page).
The plan has definitely been in the back of my head for a while to release a free ad-supported version. I just wanted to get this postmortem-type thing out the door first, and it's been difficult to force myself to sit down and take a hard look at how things went.
- When you do put together the ad-supported version, include a mechanism for it to pull text from a web address and display it in a popup -- that way when you release Bullet Factory: Super-Bullet Edition, you can update that text file and all free versions will tell the players (pirated or otherwise) that the new release is out.
I'm always surprised more devs don't do this.
- I didn't want to sound critical or insulting about "not worth 99 cents" comment above, let me further qualify it.
I am not saying your app or your effort isn't worth 99 cents in a vacuum, I am saying given everything else I have to consider along side it, I may want to spend that 99 cents on a different app.
It is the same reason I won't buy $5.99 new releases on VUDU to stream them -- it's a hell of a lot cheaper than a theater, but along-side "free" on Netflix, it seems insanely expensive.
So when I compare Bullet Factory along side some of those top-10 or top-20 games that are 99 cents, I'm hesitant to spend to even get my foot in the door to check your app out, which doesn't help you at all.
A free version with an announcement feature (that maybe checks every 10 launches) would give you nice marketing for whatever game.next() is.
Hope that helps.
Seriously: we (Blade Polska s.c.) have been through this also. We did everything according to common marketing wisdom about Tap4Two (even the landing page! [1] and real-life video [2]) -- it concluded in 10-20 sales each day. Mostly on the German Store.
We're planning runnig a facebook campaign targeted for Germans, spending all the revenue game has made so far. We will share the outcome for sure.
Your game looks like a lots lots of work with 3d engine, very impressive. What framework did you use?
As for engines, I used cocos2d for all of the 2d (imagine that) stuff like menus and the HUD. The 3d objects I made using blender, modified some code I found online[1] to load them into the project, then pretty much just cobbled together a physics and rendering engine by hand. Good times.
[1]http://iphonedevelopment.blogspot.com/2008/12/start-of-wavef...
Unfortunately, you aren't EA or Activision, you are relatively unknown and people have a hard time giving something a chance when there are so many options around. Ad-supported may not be optimal but atleast you get it into people's hands (and earning a few pennies is still better than nothing). Use that to leverage people into buying your future games.
Oh yea, and the front page of HN this time around.
It sounded like you got your hands wet in a lot of different things. That doesn't necessarily mean you are going to retire on this game, but think how many people are aware of you now and when you do Bullet Factory X (where you skeet-shoot puppies and elderly people) you'll have that much more information on how to promote the game or where to spend your time. It also sounds like you had a successful working relationship with your sister (as an artist) which is half the battle for any game title. So that's a big win right there for your next game too.
I'm not that surprised as the lack of feedback from bloggers though. I think I get 10 emails a day following the format:
It just wears you down after a while so ignoring something like Bullet Factory isn't an insult, it just falls into the 'spam' category of garbage announcements I'm sure most bloggers get every day.Bullet Factory is a fun/simple concept, but it seems better as an ad-supported title (it's too simple) than a 99 cents title when you compare it along side other 99 cent titles I've seen in the app store. The bar is getting higher and higher and unless I see something amazing in screenshots or a trailer, it's not even worth the purchase barrier to entry for me to try it. Unrealized value (purchasing a game for 99 cents only to realize I hate the gameplay mechanics) is so frustrating to me, I'd rather just not buy something I'm on the fence about.
I would take the low-sales-since-december-even-though-you-are-marketing as an indicator that it isn't a high-demand game. Release a free ad-supported version of it "Bullet Factory FREE" and move on to your next title. Keep track of the download differences to learn a bit more about what worked, what didn't and where the bar is.
That's not to say your next game or the game after that won't hit -- keep pushing, you'll have a success and it will catch you by surprise.
They always do.